Sunday, May 29, 2022

" Perdidos na Madrugada " Mudanças Climáticas.

 




Chuvas em Pernambuco: 'Não adianta receber o alerta e não saber o que fazer', avalia especialista em gestão de risco.


Por Erick Bang, GloboNews

 As fortes chuvas que atingiram o Grande Recife deixaram mais de 50 mortos devido a deslizamentos de barreiras. Nos dias anteriores ao temporal, a Agência Pernambucana de Águas e Clima (Apac) previu a chuva e divulgou alertas. Entretanto, para Leonardo Farah, especialista em gestão de risco e desastre, falta "vontade política" do poder público para evitar as mortes (veja vídeo acima).

Segundo o especialista, é preciso, para além de emitir alertas para a população que mora em locais de risco, dar condições de habitação e de mitigação de risco para as pessoas que podem ser afetadas por deslizamentos e inundações.

"Não adianta a gente receber o alerta e não saber o que fazer. Recebi um alerta que tem fortes chuvas, mas para onde eu vou? Para onde eu vou levar minha família? É uma complexidade grande, mas é possível fazer. Principalmente com um planejamento de longo prazo, verificando os locais de risco, as pessoas que moram em áreas de vulnerabilidade", afirmou.



 

  Comunidade de Monte Verde, na divisa do Recife com Jaboatão dos Guararapes, onde barreira deslizou matando dezenas de pessoas — Foto: Pedro Alves/g1


  Para Leonardo Farah, é preciso fazer planejamento urbano de longo prazo, e isso é o principal entrave na mitigação de riscos pelo poder público.

"É importante fazer um mapeamento dos locais de risco e realocar as pessoas. Porque essas pessoas que estão morando num local de risco, se não tiverem um outro local para viver, elas não vão sair de lá. É ilusão a gente achar que nós vamos deixar essas pessoas por um, dois, três meses num abrigo. É extremamente complicado você viver com uma população enorme dentro de um abrigo", disse.

O especialista em gestão de risco e desastre também disse que os desastres são previsíveis, reincidentes e cada vez mais intensos. Isso ocorre principalmente por causa das mudanças climáticas. O Recife, por exemplo, é a capital brasileira mais ameaçada por esses fenômenos, segundo relatório da Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU).


"A gente colocar a culpa na chuva é algo muito pretensioso, porque isso todo ano se repete, todo ano é a mesma situação. O evento natural extremo está cada vez acontecendo com uma maior frequência, maior intensidade e num curto espaço de tempo, por conta de questões de mudanças climáticas", explicou. 








Saturday, May 28, 2022

How an Organized Republican Effort Punishes Companies for Climate Action

Legislators and their allies are running an aggressive campaign that uses public money and the law to pressure businesses they say are pushing “woke” causes.

By David Gelles and Hiroko Tabuchi May 27, 2022

 


 In West Virginia, the state treasurer has pulled money from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, because the Wall Street firm has flagged climate change as an economic risk. 

 In Texas, a new law bars the state’s retirement and investment funds from doing business with companies that the state comptroller says are boycotting fossil fuels. Conservative lawmakers in 15 other states are promoting similar legislation. And officials in Utah and Idaho have assailed a major ratings agency for considering environmental risks and other factors, in addition to the balance sheet, when assessing states’ creditworthiness.

 Across the country, Republican lawmakers and their allies have launched a campaign to try to rein in what they see as activist companies trying to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet. “We’re an energy state, and energy accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue for us,” said Riley Moore, the West Virginia state treasurer. “All of our jobs come from coal and gas. I mean, this is who we are. This is part of our way of life here in the state.

 And they’re telling us that these industries are bad.” “We have an existential threat here,” Mr. Moore said. “We have to fight back.” In doing so, Mr. Moore and others have pushed climate change from the scientific realm into the political battles already raging over topics like voting rights, abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. issues. 

In recent months, conservatives have moved beyond tough words and used legislative and financial leverage to pressure the private sector to drop climate action and any other causes they label as “woke.” “There is a coordinated effort to chill corporate engagement on these issues,” said Daniella Ballou-Aares, chief executive of the Leadership Now Project, a nonprofit organization that wants corporations to address threats to democracy. “And it is an effective campaign. Companies are starting to go into hiding.” The pushback has been spearheaded by a group of Republican state officials that has reached out to financial organizations, facilitated media appearances and threatened to punish companies that, among other things, divest from fossil fuels. They have worked alongside a nonprofit organization that has run television ads, dispatched roaming billboard trucks and rented out a Times Square billboard criticizing BlackRock for championing what they call woke causes, including environmentalism. 

These efforts come after years during which many in the financial sector boasted that they were prioritizing environmental, social and governance issues, also known as ESG, rather than pure profits. That activism has often put companies at odds with the Republican Party, traditionally the ally of big business. 

In 2015, Salesforce and other big employers threatened to leave Indiana after the state passed, and then quickly rolled back, a law that would have allowed businesses to refuse service to gay customers. Nike faced a fierce backlash for its 2018 ad featuring Colin Kaepernick, the former N.F.L. quarterback who knelt during the national anthem to protest racism and police brutality. As the signs of a warming planet have grown more apparent over the past five years — in the form of more destructive storms and fires, record heat and drought — and as pressure has grown from consumers and liberal groups to take action, corporations have warmed to the notion of using capital and markets to create a cleaner economy. Faith-based groups, universities and foundations have divested from oil, gas and coal. 

New York State’s pension fund plans to start shedding its fossil fuels holdings, and Maine became the first state last year to require both its Treasury and its public employee pension fund to divest from fossil fuels. When President Trump declared in 2017 that he would pull the United States from the Paris climate accord, more than 2,000 businesses and investors — including Apple, Amazon and Mars — signed a pledge to continue to work toward climate goals. Then, in 2019, a group of senior business leaders promised to redefine “the purpose of a corporation” and prioritize the environment, workers and communities. And a record number of banks, investors and companies at the United Nations climate talks in Glasgow last year committed to reaching net zero (the point where their activities no longer add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere) by 2050. 

Several said they saw opportunity in investing in new kinds of technology needed to power an economy that is not based on oil, gas or coal. Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, has been among the most outspoken executives, using his annual letter to corporate leaders to implore them to look beyond the bottom line and make a positive contribution to society.

Larry Fink, the head of BlackRock, in a TV appearance in March. “Every company and every industry will be transformed by the transition to a net-zero world,” he has said. Credit...Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

 In his most recent letter, issued in January, Mr. Fink made the case for what he calls “stakeholder capitalism,” saying there is a sound business rationale for taking up the fight against climate change and imploring other companies to act.

 “Every company and every industry will be transformed by the transition to a net-zero world,” Mr. Fink wrote. “The question is, will you lead, or will you be led?” Other executives also say they are unbowed by the brewing conservative backlash. “It’s not going to stop me,” said Marc Benioff, the co-founder and co-chief executive of Salesforce and one of the most outspoken business leaders on social and political issues. “It’s pretty hard to restrict or control how a C.E.O. creates the culture of his company.”

The Texas legislature last year, which passed a bill that would block state agencies from doing business with financial firms that divest from fossil fuels.Credit...Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images

 Republican lawmakers, however, are becoming more organized in their efforts to slow corporate progress on climate issues. Mr. Moore, the West Virginia state treasurer, coordinated a letter in November from 16 state treasurers and comptrollers to banks across the country, threatening “collective action in response to the ongoing and growing economic boycott of traditional energy production industries by U.S. financial institutions.” 

 “It is our sincere hope that no financial institution will be rendered ineligible to provide banking services to our states,” the letter said. And in January, Mr. Moore pulled about $20 million out of a fund managed by BlackRock because the firm has encouraged other companies to reduce emissions. BlackRock still manages several billion for West Virginia’s state retirement system. “We’re divesting from BlackRock because they’re divesting from us,” Mr. Moore said in an interview. In private, elected officials in conservative states have been even more blunt. “These big banks are virtue signaling because they are woke,” Gary Howell, a West Virginia state representative who sponsored a bill that would blacklist companies that have divested from fossil fuels, wrote in a Feb. 8 email to Mr. Moore. The message was obtained by Documented, a corporate watchdog group, under a Freedom of Information Act request. “They either shut up or get on the list, that is my goal,” he wrote. Mr. Howell did not respond to a request for comment. Idaho’s top elected officials, including the governor and the entire congressional delegation, sent a letter last week to the chief executive of S&P Global, the ratings agency, objecting to the company’s use of ESG metrics in its rankings of states. 

 “It is impossible for the State of Idaho not to conclude that S&P has adopted a politicized ratings system,” the Republicans wrote. Officials in other states, including Utah, have sent similar letters. Curtis Loftis, the South Carolina state treasurer, emailed senior executives at JPMorgan on Sept. 1 and warned banks “to stay out of political culture wars and particularly abstain from the petty, ‘woke’ cancel culture.” Mr. Fink of BlackRock has emerged as a main target of conservatives. Last June, BlackRock joined with Vanguard and State Street to help an activist hedge fund, Engine No. 1, win three seats on the board of Exxon with the goal of pushing the energy giant to reduce its carbon footprint. Months later, a nonprofit group called Consumers’ Research received an influx of funding from undisclosed donors and began running ads attacking Mr. Fink. Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, told CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, in February that Mr. Fink and BlackRock had “helped vote on three radical environmentalists to the board of directors of Exxon whose stated goal is to get that company not focused on serving American consumers affordable gas but on Larry Fink’s personal politics.”

BlackRock seemed to backtrack this month when it said it was likely to support fewer shareholder proposals calling for climate action.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

 People familiar with BlackRock said the pressure was not changing the firm’s investment strategy. But the company has scrambled to limit the fallout in states like Texas, stressing that it is following the wishes of its clients and investing broadly. “We are perhaps the world’s largest investor in fossil fuel companies, and, as a long-term investor in these companies, we want to see these companies succeed and prosper,” BlackRock’s head of external affairs, Dalia Blass, wrote in a letter to Texas regulators in January. BlackRock,on behalf of its clients, had $259 billion in assets invested in fossil fuel companies around the world, with $91 billion invested in Texas fossil fuel companies alone, Ms. Blass stressed, listing BlackRock’s sizable holdings in Texas energy companies, including Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Kinder Morgan. BlackRock also this month said it would support fewer shareholder proposals calling for climate action because “we do not consider them to be consistent with our clients’ long-term financial interests.” 

 In a statement, BlackRock said it was “committed to engaging with all stakeholders to ensure they understand our investment decisions are driven by just one thing: our fiduciary duty to our clients.” 

 Casey Harrell, a senior strategist at The Sunrise Project, a climate advocacy group, said “BlackRock is trying to have it all ways, acting like it is trying to please everyone.” The efforts appear to be having an impact beyond BlackRock, as well. At the annual meetings of big banks and oil companies — including BP, ConocoPhillips, and Citi — shareholders voted down climate proposals that would have slowed investments in fossil fuel projects. As the stock markets sink and concerns about inflation grow, the pushback against environmental, social and governance concerns is spreading. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, waded into the debate. “ESG is a scam,” he said on Twitter on this month. “It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.” Shortly after that he shared a meme that declared an ESG score “determines how compliant your business is with the leftist agenda.”

 And last week, the global head of responsible investments for HSBC Asset Management, Stuart Kirk, made a provocative presentation titled “Why investors need not worry about climate risk” at a Financial Times event in London. Describing climate risk as a problem in the far-off future, Mr. Kirk said, “Climate change is not a financial risk that we need to worry about,” adding, “Who cares if Miami is six meters underwater in 100 years?” That view is at odds with the findings of the world’s leading climate scientists. 

 A major United Nations report warned last month that the world could reach a threshold by the end of this decade beyond which the dangers of global warming — including worsening floods, droughts and wildfires — will grow considerably. In 2021, there were 20 weather or climate-related disasters in the United States that each cost more than $1 billion in losses, according to the federal government. On social media, Mr. Kirk was celebrated by some and derided by others. Top executives at the bank said his words did not reflect HSBC’s position. The Financial Times reported that Mr. Kirk had been suspended, pending an internal investigation, something HSBC would not confirm.

 In a LinkedIn post, Noel Quinn, HSBC’s group chief executive, repeated the bank’s commitment to combating climate change. “Our ambition is to be the leading bank supporting the global economy in the transition to net zero,” he said.

 

 David Gelles is a correspondent on the Climate desk, covering the intersection of public policy and the private sector. Follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter. @dgelles Hiroko Tabuchi is an investigative reporter on the climate desk. She was part of the Times team that received the 2013 Pulitzer for explanatory reporting. @HirokoTabuchi • Facebook A version of this article appears in print on May 27, 2022, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: G.O.P. Weaponizes Statehouses Against Green Corporate Goals. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Sunday, May 22, 2022

Dozens dead, millions stranded as floods ravage Bangladesh and India


 A woman cooks outside her home in a flooded corridor of Sylhet, Bangladesh, after heavy rains. Photograph: Mamun Hossain/AFP/Getty Images







Rains inundate thousands of villages and trigger landslides in north-east Bangladesh’s worst flooding in nearly two decades

Heavy rains have caused widespread flooding in parts of Bangladesh and India, leaving millions stranded and at least 57 dead, officials say.

In Bangladesh, about 2 million people have been marooned by the worst floods in the country’s north-east for nearly two decades.

At least 100 villages at Zakiganj were inundated after floodwater rushing from India’s north-east breached a major embankment on the Barak River, said Mosharraf Hossain, the chief government administrator of the Sylhet region.

“Some two million people have been stranded by floods so far,” he said on Saturday.

Many parts of Bangladesh and neighbouring regions in India are prone to flooding, and experts say climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events around the world.

Dozens of people were killed in India during the week in days of flooding, landslides and thunderstorms, according to local disaster management authorities.

In Assam state, which borders Bangladesh, at least 14 people died in landslides and floods.

Assam authorities said on Saturday that more than 850,000 people in about 3,200 villages had been affected by the floods, triggered by torrential rains that submerged swathes of farmland and damaged thousands of homes.

Nearly 90,000 people have been moved to state-run relief shelters as water levels in rivers run high and large swathes of land remain submerged in most districts.

West of Assam, at least 33 people were killed in Bihar state in thunderstorms on Thursday.

More than three dozen people were injured in the unseasonal weather events that damaged hundreds of hectares of standing crops and thousands of fruit trees.

Bihar has also suffered an intense heatwave this week, with temperatures reaching 40C.

 In Zakiganj, Bangladesh, people were seen fishing on submerged roads and some residents took their cattle to flood shelters.

Bus driver Shamim Ahmed, 50, said: “My house is under waist-deep water. There is no drinking water, we are harvesting rainwater.

“Rain is simultaneously a blessing and a curse for us now.”

All the furniture in widow Lalila Begum’s home was ruined, she said, but she and her two daughters were staying put, hoping the waters would recede within a day or two.

“My two daughters and I put one bed on another and are living on top of it,” she said. “There’s scarcity of food. We’re sharing one person’s food and one meal a day.”

Flood water has entered many parts of Sylhet city, the largest in the north-east, where another official said about 50,000 families had been without power for days.

Hossain, the chief administrator, said the flooding was driven by both rains and the onrush of water from across the border in Assam.

But officials said the broken embankment on the border at Zakiganj could only be fixed once the water level dropped.

Friday, May 20, 2022

Crise do clima vai afetar cadeias de exportação do Brasil, diz relatório

 By THIAGO BETHÔNICO Folhapress Yahoo



*ARQUIVO* SOUSA, PB, BRASIL, 09-01-2018: Coqueiral seco no distrito de São Gonçalo na cidade de Sousa (PB). (Foto: Avener Prado/Folhapress)


SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS) - Secas, tempestades e outros eventos extremos vão se tornar cada vez mais frequentes e intensos nos próximos anos. Conforme destacou o IPCC (Painel Intergovernamental de Mudança do Clima da ONU), a atual crise do clima é sem precedentes e, pior, irreversível.

No setor privado, a necessidade de não agravar esse cenário vem ganhando força diante da pressão por boas práticas ESG (ambiental, social e de governança, na sigla em inglês). No entanto, as medidas de adaptação a esse "novo normal" seguem escassas, o que pode implicar em prejuízos não só para empresas, mas para setores inteiros.

Em relatório lançado em fevereiro, o IPCC evidenciou o descaso internacional com iniciativas de adaptação às ameaças do clima. Segundo o painel, a maior parte do financiamento climático tem sido direcionada para projetos de mitigação, isto é, que visem reduzir as emissões de gases de efeito estufa.

Iniciativas de proteção têm ficado em segundo plano, muito embora o problema já seja perceptível.

Dados do Inmet (Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia) mostram que as temperaturas no Brasil já estão mais altas, enquanto as chuvas, mais intensas. O agronegócio, por exemplo, que representa cerca de 27% do PIB (Produto Interno Bruto) nacional, é um dos grandes prejudicados, sofrendo com perdas de safras e morte de animais.

"As mudanças climáticas atingirão as cadeias de abastecimento, mercados, finanças e comércio internacionais, reduzindo a disponibilidade de bens no Brasil e aumentando seu preço, bem como prejudicando os mercados para as exportações brasileiras", diz o relatório do IPCC, que posiciona o país como um dos que mais serão afetados por questões ambientais.

Apesar dos alertas, a economia brasileira não parece estar preparada para lidar com as ameaças.

André Ferretti, ambientalista e gerente da Fundação Grupo Boticário, afirma que medidas de adaptação climática deveriam ser essenciais na agenda corporativa. No entanto, o tema ainda é muito incipiente.

"Infelizmente nós estamos até mais atrasados do que na mitigação, que também está aquém do que deveria", diz.

Ele explica que os esforços pela descarbonização evitam que o problema se intensifique, enquanto a adaptação visa uma redução de risco e dos efeitos danosos que as mudanças climáticas trazem para os negócios.

"Adaptação é [tarefa] extremamente necessária, independentemente do que estamos fazendo em mitigação. Não é uma coisa ou outra, elas têm que andar juntas", afirma. "Ainda que conseguíssemos hoje, ou num curtíssimo prazo, zerar nossas emissões, aquilo que emitimos em excesso permanece na atmosfera causando efeitos por décadas ou séculos", acrescenta.

Segundo Ferretti, alguns governos locais estão implementando conceitos de adaptação para revisar planos diretores, por exemplo. Mas, considerando que boa parte da infraestrutura e dos modelos de negócio foi projetada para uma realidade climática que não existe mais, é fundamental que o tema seja discutido pelo setor privado também.

Clima eleva risco aos negócios No Brasil, o agronegócio é o setor econômico mais  vulnerável às mudanças climáticas, mas não o único

Vanessa Pinsky, especialista em ESG e pesquisadora da USP, destaca o mercado energético --fortemente baseado em hidrelétricas-- como outro segmento bastante exposto ao clima, além das seguradoras e do setor financeiro como um todo.

"Eu tenho muitas dúvidas sobre em que medida as empresas estão de fato olhando para a necessidade de adaptação numa perspectiva de risco sistêmico para o negócio", afirma.

Ela ressalta que as ameaças climáticas já estão bem mapeadas, e não se tratam de futurologia. "A alteração do ciclo de chuvas em várias regiões do Brasil é um fato dado, vai acontecer --em menor ou maior medida, dependendo do quanto conseguirmos conter o aquecimento global", diz.

Ela também destaca outros problemas irreversíveis ou próximos a um ponto de inflexão, como o derretimento de geleiras (que elevam o nível do mar), a savanização da Amazônia (que modifica o clima em diversos biomas) e o branqueamento de corais (que afeta a cadeia marinha).

"O cenário é tão complexo que isso não é problema de uma empresa. É problema de setores e do país como um todo. Precisamos de uma política pública pautada em estratégia e investimento de longo prazo em ciência, tecnologia e inovação", afirma Pinsky.

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

ONU: mundo tem 50% de chance de aquecer 1,5° C até 2026


 

De 2017 a 2021, a probabilidade era de 10%, mas passou "para quase 50% no período 2022-2026", indicou a Organização Meteorológica Mundial, da ONU

A Organização Meteorológica Mundial (OMM), da Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU), afirmou nesta terça-feira (10) que existe uma probabilidade de quase 50% de o planeta ficar 1,5°C mais quente nos próximos cinco anos. De 2017 a 2021, a probabilidade era de 10%, mas passou "para quase 50% no período 2022-2026", indicou a OMM.

De acordo com o novo boletim sobre o clima divulgado pela Organização Meteorológica Mundial (OMM) das Nações Unidas, as chances de ultrapassar +1,5° C aumentam desde 2015, quando esse risco era praticamente nulo.

O relatório também apontou que existe 90% de chance dos anos entre 2022 e 2026 serem mais quentes, na comparação com os últimos cinco. 

 

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